Extremists to be purged from charity boards under new law

Mosques will be hit as watchdog to use powers to expel 'hate preachers'

The charitable status benefit was claimed by IERA, a charity linked to a number of the “Portsmouth jihadis,” pictured, six young men from the Hampshire city who travelled together to fight for Islamic State in SyriaPhoto: LONDON MEDIA

By Andrew Gilligan

10:09PM BST 19 Sep 2015

The Government is to purge “extremist” trustees from every charity in England and Wales in a crackdown that could affect thousands of people.

A leaked draft of the Home Office’s new counter-extremism strategy, seen by the Telegraph, says new legal powers for the Charity Commission to sack trustees will be used far more widely than expected.

In a paper in May on how it would use the powers, now being created in a bill before Parliament, the commission made no mention of extremism being grounds for disqualification.

However, the leaked counter-extremism strategy, due to be published this autumn, states that “once the legislation is enacted, the Charity Commission will take action against all trustees who meet the definition of extremism set out in this document.”

The strategy document defines extremism as “the vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs.”

Among those likely to be affected are several mosques, most of which operate as charities, including the hardline East London Mosque. Some of its trustees have publicly supported sharia law and punishments for “crimes” such as adultery.

A number of aid charities have been regularly accused of channelling funds to terror groups, including Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and have trustees with links to those organisations.

Some private Muslim schools are likely to be caught by the provisions, including two run by the Islamic Shakhsiyah Foundation, a charity closely linked to the racist and extremist group Hizb ut Tahrir.

In a Hizb pamphlet one of the foundation’s trustees, Farah Ahmed, attacked religious tolerance and democracy and said that Western education was a “threat to our beliefs and values.”

Non-Muslim groups may also be affected, including Soldiers off the Street, a veterans’ charity whose trustees include a former senior British National Party activist.

Charitable status carries substantial privileges, including exemption from paying most taxes, tax breaks for individuals who donate and Gift Aid, which allows charities to claim back the tax paid by donors.

The Telegraph has exposed how hate preachers and Islamist extremists have secured charitable status and exploited it to claim thousands of pounds in Gift Aid and other advantages.

The benefit was claimed by IERA, a charity linked to a number of the “Portsmouth jihadis,” six young men from the Hampshire city who travelled together to fight for Islamic State (Isil) in Syria. IERA’s trustees include the extremist preacher Abdurraheem Green, also known as Anthony Waclaw Green.

Its board of advisers has included Bilal Phillips, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing.

The disqualification powers will for the first time allow the Charity Commission, to remove trustees whose conduct in any respect, past or present, would be “damaging to public trust and confidence in

Those fired would also be automatically prevented from taking any other “senior management” post in the charity.

Until now, trustees could only be sacked for mismanagement or for having certain criminal convictions, which did not include many terrorist offences.

They could also avoid disqualification by resiging, then set up new charities, from which the Commission was powerless to remove them.

A spokesman for the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Acevo) said: “We support powers to tackle extremism but we are concerned at how widely these measures could be interpreted.

“If the Government were to apply its definition of extremism would the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell. be able to occupy the second-highest position of trusteeship in the land?"

Acevo's chief executive, Sir Stephen Bubb, has accused the Government of "zero-tolerance machismo" against Muslim charities.

The Charity Commission declined to comment but its chairman, William Shawcross, has said that Islamist extremism is the "most deadly" problem charities face.